Is the American system of colleges and universities designed to protect the privileged and leave everyone else behind? Or can a college education today provide real opportunity to young people seeking to improve their station in life?

The Years That Matter Most tells the stories of students trying to find their way, with hope, joy, and frustration, through the application process and into college. Drawing on new research, the book reveals how the landscape of higher education has shifted in recent decades and exposes the hidden truths of how the system works and whom it works for. And it introduces us to the people who really make higher education go: admissions directors trying to balance the class and balance the budget, College Board officials scrambling to defend the SAT in the face of mounting evidence that it favors the wealthy, researchers working to unlock the mysteries of the college-student brain, and educators trying to transform potential dropouts into successful graduates.

With insight, humor, and passion, Paul Tough takes readers on a journey from Ivy League seminar rooms to community college welding shops, from giant public flagship universities to tiny experimental storefront colleges. Whether you are facing your own decision about college or simply care about the American promise of social mobility, The Years That Matter Most will change the way you think—not just about higher education, but about the nation itself.

An unconventional business book for the rebels and misfits--the Rare Breeds--who don't fit the traditional mold, offering an approach that's anything but business as usual. What if your biggest weaknesses are actually your greatest strengths?

Sunny Bonnell and Ashleigh Hansberger, award-winning brand consultants and founders of Motto, bring their wisdom and insights to this radical "outside the box" business guide written specifically for the mavericks, oddballs, and visionaries they call Rare Breeds. While most advice guides encourage you to change your inherent characteristics to get the job, get the promotion, get the client, Bonnell and Hansberger identify a different approach: instead of trying to conform, march to the beat of your own drum. By following your own path, you'll find your success.

They know this approach works based on their own experience. When these iconoclastic thinkers behind the company acclaimed by the Chicago Tribune and Forbes started their company, they didn't follow the rules of most leadership books and business school courses. "Instead of doing everything people told us we should be doing--be transactional, be conservative, be nice--we did the opposite. Instead of burying our innate vices--obsessive perfectionism, rebelliousness, weirdness--we made them our selling points." The result: a flourishing company that is the model for an entirely new approach to success.

Rare Breeds don't get what they want by adapting to the conventional rules: instead, they use the traits often considered shortcomings as tools for creation and growth. Combining examples and practical tools, Bonnell and Hansberger identify seven vices-turned-virtues--Rebellious, Audacious, Obsessed, Hot-Blooded, Weird, Hypnotic, Emotional--to help disruptors and trailblazers discover their inner Rare Breed and tap into them to realize their full potential in work and life.

Sunny Bonnell and Ashleigh Hansberger are the award-winning founders of Motto, one of the top branding and digital agencies for rule breakers and game changers. They’ve been featured on CBS News and Fox Business and in Entrepreneur, American Express, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Inc., Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.

This week we explore a part of human nature that is often largely left untouched.

Desire.

Over the past eight years, journalist Lisa Taddeo has driven across the country six times to embed herself with ordinary women from different regions and backgrounds. The result, Three Women, is the deepest nonfiction portrait of desire ever written and one of the most anticipated books of the year.

Based on years of immersive reporting, and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy, Three Women is a groundbreaking portrait of erotic longing in today’s America, exposing the fragility, complexity, and inequality of female desire with unprecedented depth and emotional power. It is both a feat of journalism and a triumph of storytelling, brimming with nuance and empathy, that introduces us to three unforgettable women—and one remarkable writer—whose experiences remind us that we are not alone.

Together we chat about how we as humans deal with desire – the thrills, the complications, the opportunity for misunderstanding. In a conversation, that I think, breaks new ground for this podcast, we really dive into the delicate nature of relationships and how we interact in them.

Lisa Taddeo has contributed to New York magazine, Esquire, Elle, Glamour, and many other publications. Her nonfiction has been included in the Best American Sports Writing and Best American Political Writing anthologies, and her short stories have won two Pushcart Prizes. She lives with her husband and daughter in New England.

Nick Radge began trading in 1985. During a stint working for an investment bank in Singapore Nick dedicated his evenings testing trading strategies; 2 hours a day for 18 months, a total of at least 750 hours. Nick’s first book, Every-Day Traders, was written to identify the traits of successful traders. What do successful traders do that is different to other traders? In Adaptive Analysis for Australian Stocks, Nick shows his readers how to use price action to make the most of their winning trades and, often more importantly, to quickly recognize a losing trade and exit their position. In Unholy Grails–A New Road to Wealth, Radge outlines simple strategies to make money during uptrends and how to defend capital when the markets turn down. Nick is a Director at The Chartist, a stock market advisory service based in Queensland, Australia.

This is Nick’s third appearance on my show and his no nonsense approach to life and markets is always a breath of fresh air!

Scott Kupor is the managing partner of Andreessen Horowitz. He has overseen the firm’s rapid growth to one hundred fifty employees and more than $7 billion in assets under management.

What are venture capitalists saying about your startup behind closed doors? And what can you do to influence that conversation?

If Silicon Valley is the greatest wealth-generating machine in the world, Sand Hill Road is its humming engine. That’s where you’ll find the biggest names in venture capital, including famed VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, where lawyer-turned-entrepreneur-turned-VC Scott Kupor serves as managing partner.

Whether you’re trying to get a new company off the ground or scale an existing business to the next level, you need to understand how VCs think. In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Kupor explains exactly how VCs decide where and how much to invest, and how entrepreneurs can get the best possible deal and make the most of their relationships with VCs. Kupor explains, for instance:

Why most VCs typically invest in only one startup in a given business category.

Why the skill you need most when raising venture capital is the ability to tell a compelling story.

How to handle a “down round,” when startups have to raise funds at a lower valuation than in the previous round.

What to do when VCs get too entangled in the day-to-day operations of the business.

Why you need to build relationships with potential acquirers long before you decide to sell.

Michael digs into Kupor’s firsthand experiences, insider advice, and practical takeaways. His book Secrets of Sand Hill Road is the guide every entrepreneur needs to turn their startup into the next unicorn.

Ten Years a Nomad is Nauthor Matt Kepnes’ poignant exploration of wanderlust and what it truly means to be a nomad. Part travel memoir and part philosophical look at why we travel, it is filled with aspirational stories of Kepnes' many adventures.

Kepnes knows what it feels like to get the travel bug. After meeting some travelers on a trip to Thailand in 2005, he realized that living life meant more than simply meeting society's traditional milestones, such as buying a car, paying a mortgage, and moving up the career ladder. Inspired by them, he set off for a year-long trip around the world before he started his career. He finally came home after ten years. Over 500,000 miles, 1,000 hostels, and 90 different countries later, Matt has compiled his favorite stories, experiences, and insights into this travel manifesto. Filled with the color and perspective that only hindsight and self-reflection can offer, these stories get to the real questions at the heart of wanderlust. Travel questions that transcend the basic "how-to," and plumb the depths of what drives us to travel ― and what extended travel around the world can teach us about life, ourselves, and our place in the world.

Ten Years a Nomad is for travel junkies, the travel-curious, and anyone interested in what you can learn about the world when you don’t have a cable bill for a decade or spend a month not wearing shoes living on the beach in Thailand.

One of our fundamental desires as humans is our need to feel useful. The process of creating something or building a skill is at the center of a fulfilling life.

This is problematic when you consider the world we live in today. So many jobs are characterized by menial tasks, endless meetings, and little tangible impact. How can we redefine the way we get things done to better reflect our basic needs?

Dan Cable is Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School, and he believes he has the answer, or at least the tools, to equip people that want more out of their nine-to-five existence. His book Alive at Work shows many of the reasons for unhappiness at work. Organizations aren’t encouraging us to explore and learn, so we often find ourselves only partially engaged in work. The book is filled with real-world examples and outlines how both employees and leaders can ignite the curiosity and passion that drives us to achieve.

Dan’s research and teaching focus on employee engagement, change, organizational culture, leadership mindset, and the linkage between brands and employee behaviors. Dan was selected for the 2018 Thinkers50 Radar List, The Academy of Management has twice honored Dan with “Best article” awards, and The Academy of Management Perspectives ranked Dan in the “Top 25 most influential management scholars.”

Nudge meets Hooked in a practical approach to designing products and services that change behavior, from what we buy to how we work.

Deciding what to create at modern companies often looks like an episode of Mad Men: people throw ideas around until one sounds sexy enough to execute and then they scale it to everyone. The result? Companies overspend on marketing to drive engagement with products and services that people don't want and won't help them be happier and healthier.

Start at the End offers a new framework for design, grounded in behavioral science. Technology executive and behavioral scientist Matt Wallaert argues that the purpose of everything is behavior change. By starting with outcomes instead of processes, the most effective companies understand what people want to do and why they aren't already doing it, then build products and services to bridge the gap.

Wallaert is a behavioral psychologist who has led product design at organizations ranging from startups like Clover Health to industry leaders such as Microsoft. Whether dissecting the success behind Uber's ridesharing service or Flamin' Hot Cheetos, he underscores with clarity and humor how this approach can improve the way we work and live.

This is an essential roadmap for building products that matter--and changing behavior for the better.

My business, my life in Asia–all a product of the freedom and opportunity that the internet has provided. It’s there for the taking if you’re willing to work.

This week I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with someone who’s life path was also significantly altered by the digital revolution. Mike Jackness is the CEO of Terran, an eCommerce company that builds and operates unique brands and content sites. He is also the cofounder of Ecom Crew, a blog and podcast dedicated to showing what goes on behind the scenes while running a seven-figure eCommerce brand.

Getting his start in the online poker world over a decade ago, Mike ran one of the largest poker affiliate companies in the world until new legislation brought the whole industry to a halt. From there, he ventured into ecommerce with Treadmill.com, which he then sold in 2014. Since then, he has started multiple other ecommerce brands with total revenues over $7 million annually.

One of the most successful companies of the digital age, The Alibaba Group, are obvious innovators when it comes to utilizing emerging technology in business strategy. Their Executive Vice President, the former Chief of Staff and strategy advisor to founder Jack Ma, opens up on how the new landscape is shaping how value is created.

Dr. Ming Zeng has conducted extensive research on e-commerce, the growth strategy of Chinese companies, the competition and cooperation between Chinese and multinational firms, and how the emergence of Chinese competitors is changing global competition. He knows the landscape of digital business and has contributed to creating a global powerhouse that is reshaping how businesses operate.

With access to the latest technologies, Zeng has seen first-hand how artificial intelligence, machine learning, the mobile internet, and cloud computing are redefining how value is created. He explains how Alibaba and companies like them are using these technologies to automate decisions, develop new products, and plan strategic positioning.

Smart Business: What Alibaba's Success Reveals about the Future of Strategy is his simple, overarching framework to guide strategy formulation and execution in this data-rich and highly interactive environment. It’s accessible and written to shed light on these successful companies to those outside of the technology industry and startups.

Ming Zeng was chief strategy officer of Alibaba Group from January 2008 to 2019. He joined the company in August 2006 as executive vice president of strategy, and served as acting president of China Yahoo! from November 2006 to December 2007.

One of the start-up world’s most in-demand executive coaches—hailed as the “CEO Whisperer” (Gimlet Media)—reveals why radical self-inquiry is critical to professional success and healthy relationships in all realms of life.

Jerry Colonna helps start-up CEOs make peace with their demons, the psychological habits and behavioral patterns that have helped them to succeed—molding them into highly accomplished individuals—yet have been detrimental to their relationships and ultimate well-being. Now, this venture capitalist turned executive coach shares his unusual yet highly effective blend of Buddhism, Jungian therapy, and entrepreneurial straight talk to help leaders overcome their own psychological traumas. Reboot is a journey of radical self-inquiry, helping you to reset your life by sorting through the emotional baggage that is holding you back professionally, and even more important, in your relationships.

Jerry has taught CEOs and their top teams to realize their potential by using the raw material of their lives to find meaning, to build healthy interpersonal bonds, and to become more compassionate and bold leaders. In Reboot, he inspires everyone to hold themselves responsible for their choices and for the possibility of truly achieving their dreams.

Work does not have to destroy us. Work can be the way in which we achieve our fullest self, Jerry firmly believes. What we need, sometimes, is a chance to reset our goals and to reconnect with our deepest selves and with each other. Reboot moves and empowers us to begin this journey.

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The founder and CEO of Reboot.IO, Inc. Colonna is a certified professional coach, Colonna draws on his wide variety of experiences to help clients design a more conscious life and make needed changes to their career to improve their performance and satisfaction. He established his coaching practice in 2007. Prior to this work, Colonna was venture capitalist focused on investing in early stage technology-related startups.

In 2002, Colonna became a partner with J.P. Morgan Partners (JPMP), the private-equity arm of J.P. Morgan Chase where he led the firm’s investments in companies such as ProfitLogic Inc. Colonna served as a director at ProfitLogic until its purchase by Oracle Inc.

Christian Terwiesch is the Andrew M. Heller Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is Co-director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management, and also holds a faculty appointment In Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. From small start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, Christian has helped companies become more innovative, often by implementing innovation tournament events and by helping to restructure their innovation portfolio.

Nicolaj Siggelkow is the David M. Knott Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is a Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management. Having spearheaded groundbreaking research on strategy, Nicolaj has been named a Fellow of the Strategic Management Society, the world’s leading association of strategy researchers. He has run strategy workshops for Fortune 500 organizations and small firms alike, helping develop and analyze their strategies.

Today the professors join Michael to posit the question: What if there were a way to turn occasional, sporadic transactions with customers into long-term, continuous relationships–while simultaneously driving dramatic improvements in operational efficiency? What if you could break your existing trade-offs between superior customer experience and low cost?

This is the promise of a connected strategy. New forms of connectivity–involving frequent, low-friction, customized interactions–mean that companies can now anticipate customer needs as they arise, or even before. Simultaneously, enabled by these technologies, companies can create new business models that deliver more value to customers. Connected strategies are win-win: Customers get a dramatically improved experience, while companies boost operational efficiency.

Nicolaj Siggelkow and Christian Terwiesch reveal the emergence of connected strategies as a new source of competitive advantage. With in-depth examples from companies operating in industries such as healthcare, financial services, mobility, retail, entertainment, nonprofit, and education, Connected Strategy identifies the four pathways–respond-to-desire, curated offering, coach behavior, and automatic execution–for turning episodic interactions into continuous relationships. The authors show how each pathway creates a competitive advantage, then guide you through the critical decisions for creating and implementing your own connected strategies.

The Godmother of Silicon Valley, legendary teacher, and mother of a Super Family shares her tried-and-tested methods for raising happy, healthy, successful children using Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness: TRICK.

Esther Wojcicki—“Woj” to her many friends and admirers—is famous for three things: teaching a high school class that has changed the lives of thousands of kids, inspiring Silicon Valley legends like Steve Jobs, and raising three daughters who have each become famously successful. What do these three accomplishments have in common? They’re the result of TRICK, Woj’s secret to raising successful people: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness. Simple lessons, but the results are radical.

Wojcicki’s methods are the opposite of helicopter parenting. As we face an epidemic of parental anxiety, Woj is here to say: relax. Talk to infants as if they are adults. Allow teenagers to pick projects that relate to the real world and their own passions, and let them figure out how to complete them. Above all, let your child lead. How to Raise Successful People offers essential lessons for raising, educating, and managing people to their highest potential. Change your parenting, change the world.

Note: Her husband is Stanford University professor of physics Stanley Wojcicki. They have three daughters: Susan (CEO of YouTube), Janet, a Fulbright-winning anthropologist, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and researcher, and Anne (co-founder of 23andMe).